Inhuman Reversal
by Chen ZiXin
Summary: In a flipped version of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, terrestrial man decides to invade Mars due to the effects of global warming. If we were the alien invaders of a foreign planet, how would we have been any different to them?
1. The Eve of the War

**Author's note: This entire fanfic has been reworked from SCRATCH as of the start of 2015.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own H.G. Well's War of the Worlds. Or any wars for that matter. And no, I don't own the Worlds. Or H.G. Wells. Or... anything, really... (-Awkward silence-)... ANYWAY! Please read and review.**

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><p>No on would've believed that by the last years of the thirty-ninth century that man's great, near immortal intelligence was reduced to keenly watching a different world. We studied as they went about their business, scrutinising them. Perhaps the way we studied microbes in a drop of water. Perhaps the same way they studied us two thousand years ago.<p>

After contact with the initial Martian race and the subsequent slaughter and sudden defeat of the Martians at the hands of terrestrial virus and disease much had happened. Man was at first awakened to its vulnerability, its peoples were brought aware of the weakness of their governments, and Earthly science's inability to defeat its Martian counterparts. Initial attempts to unite Terrestrial man against alien superiority quickly failed due to the fragility of Terrestrial civilisation, and much chaos ensued; revolutions, regime changes, ideological and racial wars, the rise and falls of many great empires and super-states. Once again, the Earthly ape turned against fellow ape, proving to be much more lethal to himself than any Martian invader.

On Mars, though, things proved much worse. The great minds of Mars had expended much resources preparing to colonise sunward, and when Earthen viruses had prevented them of their victory they turned to Venus, which turned to be much more of a death world than even their own. With absolutely no hope whatsoever of saving themselves the Martian civilisation all but vanished overnight, leaving little behind for their dying planet.

And so, even as on Earth all intelligent life spent its resources exterminating itself it was left unhampered. Those few on Earth that did pay attention to the red planet had reported that Mars had truly died out. Later, when terrestrial men finally unified after millennia of conflict, it was confirmed that the Martian invaders of the late nineteenth century were gone.

And ever since, man grew increasingly vain.

The newly created world organisation of Terra, a multinational corporate of loosely tied state governments, began to build factories and power plants across the globe. It mined entire mountains for their minerals and disposing waste into the seas and skies. It sought more food from the soil than could be provided. It the planet into a single, united super-city from deep beneath the ground and reaching to the heavens: massive monuments to the glory of man. For its technical purposes it build stations to broadcast and transmit radio, electricity, light, radiation. To the gulf of space it launched probes, satellites, and yet more stations for its purposes, going so far as to strip mine the asteroid belt to replace it with a Dyson bubble.

At the time mankind had a zealous belief in its protection. After all, humanity had survived so long as the only intelligent species on Earth after so many billions of years. The Earth had provided for its needs as it grew as a race, and the Earth had protected it when superior beings from Mars had come, and it had tolerated man in the destruction of the genocidal wars in between. Surely, Mother Earth would forever love and nurture her blessed child Man!

And so, a thousand years after the unity of the human race, Mother Earth was exploited to the point where it could support life no longer, and its atmosphere was far more ruinous than that of Mars when they were pushed into conquest.

Let us not dwell on the exact details of Terrestrial Man's changes between the crisis and the time I write this. But let it also be known that Man had quickly awoken from his dream, if too late, and swiftly executed those that had so quickly killed the planet that they believed had mothered them. Even as they did so they realised that the damage had already been done, and no matter how intelligent or resourceful Man had become, the Earth was surely doomed.

By the thirty-ninth century terrestrial man was reduced to relying on the same sciences and technologies that had rendered their planet so hostile to also meet the bare minimums of sustaining their own lives.

Yet, in all its irony, the very experiments that had caused mankind to make Earth uninhabitable had also reversed the trends that had occurred on Mars. Though the cold red planet was far from being rich with life, and having more or less stagnated ever since the initial invasion, it was a much more suitable planet for humankind than his own.

And so despite having relinquished the art of war many years ago terrestrial man found itself once again in need of force in order to get his needs. With what little resources could still be mustered an expedition was readied to be sent to Mars.

We had made certain, before setting off, that our expedition would not fail on a small miscalculation of an unaccounted micro-organism, unlike our Martian counterparts. As terrible as Earth's atmosphere had become, the Terrestrial viruses were truly eradicated, and most likely Man's immune system had declined with it. After checking we ultimately concluded that the Martian world contained no potential harmful germ to Man's non-existent immune system, for they too had eliminated disease with their science.

On a date I cannot specify (for Terrestrial Man no longer knows the exact date and only that it's approximately the late thirty-ninth century; such is the crippled state we are in,) the first space rockets of the expeditionary force fired from their platforms, visible from even the Martian planet as a huge eruption of fire.

The Martians of the planned landing site would have seen the flash of the rocket ship firing off at their equivalent of midnight. Nearly a full Martian day later, another flash could be seen from Mars. The daily firing of rocket ships repeated for a few days, before it was halted. The reason that we did not fire more was to preserve our resources, in case the operation was to fail. It was, perhaps, a good thing that we had done so.

I was, at the time, already stationed in orbit of the red planet. I had been positioned there for several weeks prior to act as a communications officer between expeditionary force units. Upon receiving word that the expeditionary force had finally launched, just over one hundred and eighty two minutes after the actual launch (the time it takes for a light speed message to reach Mars from Terra), I decided to once again study the Martians scampering along over their petty concerns. They knew so little of the impeding invasion from their sunward neighbour that they had themselves once bullied. They were so peaceful and tranquil in their lifestyles as they lived. The start of the fourtieth century AD brought an end to their disillusions of safety.


	2. The Two Alien Species

**Author's note: This entire fanfic has been reworked from SCRATCH as of the start of 2015.**

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><p>In order to properly understand the conflict it is best to have a knowledge of the belligerents. While the Martians are alien to you as they are to us, the twentieth century reader must also bear in mind that we are as alien to you as we are to them. Between the three there is so much difference that cannot be crossed or comprehended, much as a plant cannot comprehend its differences to mollusks. At the same time, we all share the basic similarities in our needs to sustain our material bodies, and that our consciousness is driven by such needs.<p>

Though at first it had seemed that Mars had become devoid of life it soon turned out, after Terrestrial Man's accidents had revived their planet, that Martian life had merely gone into a sort of centuries long hibernation. As soon as their planet started to warm the red plant life began to once again grow, and its inhabitants began to resurface and once again operate as they had, as though no planetary cooling had happened.

Yet, upon closer observation to the Martians, one realises that they had been truly affected by the temporary death of their planet: The once large and bulky adult Martian, what was once a massive brain several times larger than terrestrial men supported by tentacle appendage had rapidly shrunk in the intervening times. A mixture of factors played into this; first was the reduction of sunlight, making it impossible for the Martians to receive enough vitamins from the sun to grow, as well as the coldness of their planet making it difficult for Martians to feed their cattle enough to provide themselves proper nourishment. This was combined with the fact that, with the collapse of their original civilisation, Martian life spans quickly reduced to a point where they died of hunger or exhaustion long before they could reach their true physical maturity.

The physical changes to the planet Mars and the Martians that inhabit them seemed to take their toll on the Martian mentality, too. Where they had been, twenty centuries before, able to cross the gulf of space to our planet they were suddenly so ignorant of our existence. Terrestrial probes were capable of going so far as penetrating the Martian atmosphere un-stealthed without causing stir. Through this we were able to do much research on the Martians without hinderance.

Martian technology had failed to advance at all since the last time it came in contact with Terrestrial man. In many ways one could say it had become more primitive. The once mighty and elegant Martian machines that supported them had become things clumsy and unreliable, made of poorer alloys and ineffective engineering. The buildings they constructed for themselves and the methods of agriculture they used were outclassed by those of early Mesopotamian cities of Earth. There was little that separated them from the bipedal brutes they domesticate for food, save for the fact that Martians had primitive hold on mathematics and industry. These were the beings that had frightened Terrestrial intelligence so long ago! Such lowly beasts!

It was concluded that Mars had fallen into a sort of a Dark Age. Indeed, the Martians were far more interested in feuding over one another than they were of defending themselves from us. Killing their own the way Terrestrial Man had done before it united. In all this and more, the Martians are more comprehensible and perhaps even more easily empathised with to the twentieth century reader than his descendants.

Terrestrial Man, if it can still be considered 'Man', had too evolved and adapted, but as a result of his own intention. Throughout the twentieth and fortieth centuries Terrestrial humans growth in technology reduced the need for human labourers and allowed humans to completely focus on shallow desires to maintain appearances. Bones were cut, cracked and altered, meat was removed, eyes were widened, lips thinned, and the digestive system was increasingly simplified to make for a leaner frame, supported by a fully artificial diet. At its peak, any member of Terrestrial humanity could be taken at random and should they have met a fellow human from any time prior to their own and the latter would be immediately entranced by the sheer beauty of the former.

All this would prove disastrous for the future, however, when resources became scarce. Through all the physical changes that had occurred to the race, humans had become things excruciatingly frail. The fortieth century Terrestrials had become so accustomed to having their every movement assisted that they were incapable of standing, eating, or even breathing unassisted.

But the effects of the artificial alterations could not be so easily reversed. Instead, we of the thirty-ninth century find ourselves with wires pierced into our skulls and arms, our spines reinforced with metals, and our mouths forever covered with a tube that fed us food, water, and oxygen while filtering out whatever poison there was from the atmosphere. Our physical bodies had become nearly immobile dolls, and the millions of machines that surround us became the true agents of the mind. These machines we could control by radio signals transmitted through the wires covering us, which then move at our command.

This too was the method by which we communicate with one another. Signals transmit from one mind to another in a sort of indirect telepathy. Vocal communication has ceased due to the inability to easily control the air in our lungs, but it remains the basis of the telepathic radio messages we send to one another.

By contrast, the Martians, whom seemingly never possessed a sophisticated spoken language, communicate by way of physical visual signaling to one another; in this way they were indeed surprisingly advanced; the exact positioning of tentacles could alter the meaning of the received message at any time.

In terms of social structure and values, the twentieth century reader would find them to be two opposing worlds, with their own world likely in the middle.

Martian methods of organisation were scarcely anything impressive: Their population had reduced such that they could only form small village areas, but all of these were heavily centralised into what were similar to Terrestrial nation-states, which were led by a small elite counsel that was made up of aged members. Such outdated dictatorship of an oligarchy; something already outdated by the time of the late Romans. These nation-states would fight one another often for seemingly no reason to speak of. We're uncertain as to whether Martian organisation was always this way, but regardless... this was how far the Martians had fallen; to have the hierarchical structure of un-evolved monkeys.

Terrestrial organisation was evidently far superior. Ours had reached a fully incorporated democratic society that was ruled by none other than the people themselves; this has become especially true after ridding ourselves of the world organisation of national governments that had created the crisis we lived in. Through shattering national borders and eradicating arbitrary government we live in a utopian social order, save for the hostile environment. We offer liberties and equalities and freedoms far beyond that which prior Man could conceive, and looked towards the new age with great hope, for it is the future that will come to us and not the past. A perfect, indiscriminate, all-loving international community.

It is this sense of arrogance in our liberty that ends up creating an even stronger will for us to invade the red planet. After all, we weren't there to exterminate them or use them for food like they had done to us so long ago; we are much more pacifistic than they.

'We merely need to move to their planet, and they are an obstruction in the way. Perhaps in future,' Man thought, 'we could even uplift them to be as we are! No longer the primitive beasts of a dictatorship! After all, life is equal. We shall give them the grace of learning to become like us!'

With these thoughts in our minds we were suddenly ignorant of the hypocritical imperialism we were about to embark on.

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><p><strong>AN: There are other differences between the storyverse and our own universe that I could not fit into the story without making it out of character; the idea is that the narrator is writing back in time to communicate to the year 1900 (immediately after the initial Martian invasion) of _his_ timeline, so he would have no idea what _our_ timeline is like, so evidently the narrator can't tell the differences.**

**The differences are, basically: The devastation of the Martian invasion and the ensuing chaotic wars end up rendering humanity missing the chance to invent many spectacular things we did in our own world that create the 'digital age' in which things advance so exponentially, like personal computers, silicon chips, the internet because they're too busy trying to constantly make bigger and more impractical weapons (and factories to make the weapons) so they can kill each other (and maybe the Martians if they invade again). Instead the world continues with technology that runs on burning coal or oil, or at _best_ nuclear power. Technological advancement is more linear, so instead of building 'better' humans kept building 'bigger' and 'more', and there is no digital revolution; the last major human revolution is the industrial revolution, and you'll notice that between the agricultural and industrial revolutions things tended to change a lot slower than they do today in our own world****. **

**Of course, the downside to using fossil fuels to power everything that everyone does is pollution, which we know is a terribly bad thing, but during the world wars (which, in this world, lasted several hundred years) people didn't quite realise it, and even into the early/mid cold war people were still seeing factories and smoke as a sign of strength and development.**

**The reason I'm keeping humanity's development limited is because (a) It's easier to imagine a future with slightly superior engineering and inferior technology than it is to imagine a future with ultra-futuristic super-lasers as a writer, (b) Because if humanity kept at it's modern rate we'd probably be able to move to other star systems by the time global warming is _toxic, _so we wouldn't invade Mars, and (c) Because during the filming of the 1953 film version of War of the Worlds the US army had experts that told the film makers that any modern army at the time could easily wipe the floor with the Martians of the original novel, and I didn't just want to do the 'force field' thing that the films do, so instead I keep both the Martians and Terrestrials limited to technologies imaginable by humans in the early 1900s.**

**Oh, and also Mars is inhabitable in this story. Which it's not in reality. I'm sure you knew that already.**


	3. The Crash Landing

**Author's note: This entire fanfic has been reworked from SCRATCH as of the start of 2015.**

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><p>Then came the night of the crash landing. I could see it through the cameras on the multitude of Terrestrial made satellites around Mars, even as the rockets approached.<p>

An estimated one hour before impact communication link between the first rocket and I opened up over the radio channel linked into my mind through the thousands of wires connected I'm connected to. At first it was only static, and a pause before true communication was made, for there was still distance to cover, even at light speed communication.

"This is First Harmony Green. Mother Terra blesses you, brother and equal," was the greeting that sounded in my head. A stock introductory greeting. "I am about to enter the Martian atmosphere in one hour. Everything proceeding as planned. Anything to of interest on the red planet?"

"This is Fire Star Link. Welcome to Mars, sister and equal. The Martians are still blinded as they were before," I reply. "They don't evolve much. May we liberate them of their antiquity."

Another pause, this one shorter, as is the distance between the rocket to its destination. "Well we'll rid them of their confounded barbaric sense of territorialism and religious figure worship. Mother Terra will be so proud!"

For a moment I was amused in the irony of her statement.

An hour after that, the rocket crash landed onto the Martian surface, leaving a long trail of its visible landing, where all the plant life as well as dirt was pushed aside to make way for the heavy, artificial device. The trail of the crash land had a length of over a kilometer, and the rocket lay at the front of the inelegant landing zone. Another message relayed from the rocket unit. "Landing successful. I am now on Mars. Let it be known that I am the first of Earth's children to be here. Commencing preparations to exit rockets."

"Make haste, First Harmony Green," I urge. "The nearby Martian populace is already aware of your presence."

Indeed, not long after First Harmony Green would receive the message a Martian walking machine walked to an area a few hundred meters from the landing site before scurrying away. Within moments it had signaled to its entire local village, and evacuation already begun upon the smaller spiderlike machines, while the taller, tripedal fighting machines began to attempt to make a large circle around the Harmony Green First's rocket, staying no closer than two hundred meters.

"First Harmony Green. Ready for exit when clear."

"You are clear to exit. The mission will now officially commence. All of Mother Earth's children watch us now."

The large hatch of the rocket slid open slowly, finally allowing the Martian air into the Terrestrial machine. It was the moment of the first 'step' of Terrestrial man on Martian soil. A moment of memory and glorification, it should have been. However, almost immediately after the hatch seized to open the Martian fighting machines all lifted their appendages, aiming it towards the rocket. Soon, invisible streaks of heat shot towards the rocket.

Clearly, then, they seemed to know that this rocket was of alien origin, and they too knew of the fate of Terrestrial men that tried to make first contact with the Martians as they landed. In their determination to not make the same mistake the Martians attempted to kill whatever lay inside the terrestrial machine before it was ready; something which the Royal army failed to do at the time.

"This is First Harmony Green under heat," comes her voice after a second of lag. "Such militant hostility! Not a shred of civility! These peoples are scarcely intelligent! They must be punished at once!"

"This is Fire Star Link. All reaction justified."

Almost immediately after I sent my telepathic message had First Harmony Green descended into her primal demand for violence and bloodshed. "For Earth and International!" With her battle cry of modern Earthly ideals of thirty-ninth century man, the war between Earth and Mars had begun anew.


	4. The First Steps

**Author's Note: This entire fanfic has been rewritten from scratch as of January 2015. If you've read anything prior to this chapter you will have to reread it again, as the entirety of the story has changed. Apologies for the inconvenience.**

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><p>The Martian heat ray is a weapon that is intended to melt through its target through the sheer concentrated energy that it focuses at a single point, and was the primary weapon on Mars utilised by the Martians. It was used to great effect against both armoured and unarmoured Terrestrial military targets during their invasion of Earth. On a planet as cold as Mars it makes sense that one of the most lethal weapons conceivable to them would be intense heat, for nothing on their planet they have seen withstanding intense heat which all on the surface of their planet is unused to.<p>

However, on the planet Earth the effects of Man-induced global warming had rendered a need for heat immune machinery increasingly pressing, so humanity developed advanced cooling technologies to shield his machines. As our home planet became even more and more heated machines were needed to be able to maintain operation at temperatures beyond the boiling point of iron. As such, the initial volley of Martian heat rays did no damage to the Terrestrial machine that lay within.

That very leviathan then crawled out of the large rocket like an insect emerging from a cocoon. The large machine of Man, though lower in height than the thirty meter Martian fighting machines, was much larger in bulk. A large ironclad for land, mounted on caterpillar tracks, blackened from the smog and dust of Earth's atmosphere.

The Martians, seeing that their heat rays had failed to do damage, raised another gun-like appendage; the poisonous black smoke, the secondary weapon used by the Martians. Firing a canister each at the land ironclad of Man, the Martians hoped to poison the Terrestrial beast.

This too was a futile attempt, for the atmosphere of Earth was no less poisonous than the thick black cloud the Martians fired at the land ironclad, yet another issue that Man had brought upon himself. Yet another factor of our inhospitable Mother Earth that had prepared us for this day. The poisonous smoke failed to make it into the lungs or skin of the Terrestrial pilot of the machine before it was filtered out.

"My. Their black poison is even less lethal than the factory smog of our home planet," First Harmony Green noted lightheartedly. "Mother Earth has truly made us strong. Commencing counter attack."

First Harmony Green aimed the radio and remote controlled weapons of the land ironclad.

Throughout Man's history Terrestrial Man has always focused on his ability to used ranged weaponry, and this ranged weaponry came in the form of kinetic projectiles. He would initially throw sharp stones, and later would invent the sling, the throwing spear, and the bow. With machinery he would invent crossbows and catapults. With gunpowder he would make cannon and the hand gun. This trend forever continues even into the genocide wars, for the weapon design has a simple idea behind it: Any object will shatter if you smash at it with another object that has enough kinetic energy and/or pressure.

These same weapons principals were utilised by the automated weaponry on the land ironclad; the firing of a heavy, dense, sharpened metal shell by accelerating it with electromagnetic energy from rails allowing it to accelerate to several kilometers per second; far more than enough penetrating power to obliterate any Martian fighting machine.

The weapons, each aiming at a separate Martian machine, fired simultaneously, creating loud ripping noises as they launched their shells. Within moments each of the fighting machines fired upon burst in red; their pilots smashed together with the metal of the machines.

Though my concern was suddenly taken elsewhere when I noticed a disturbance in the radio frequency of First Harmony Green. After a pause she elaborated, "My ears are bleeding..." in a disturbed manner. "I'm deaf now."

"Oh gosh," was all I could say. It appears that the pressure of the atmosphere of Mars had increased the volume of sound interpreted by the human ear, which subsequently bursts from immediate overuse.

The remaining fighting machines, meanwhile, seeing the futility of their task, had begun to flee across the Martian fields of red.

"Please eliminate the rest, First Harmony Green," I remind the Terrestrial woman on the red planet. "Lest they reorganise."

Re-aiming and reloading the automated guns she swiftly complies. In only a few moments more I see from my satellite camera the scurrying tripods burst into the same red as their slain comrades.

Harmony Green First then set to continue her establishment of her base.

"A pity about your hearing, by the way," I relay to her idly.

In a joking manner, indicating that she thought little of it, she responded, "I suppose you can't win a war without having a few casualties."

As more and more terrestrial machines rolled out of the Terrestrial space rocket I notice a movement from the hatch of the land ironclad from one of the camera feeds.

"Harmo... What in the name of Mother Earth are you doing?" I ask, grunting with my bodily vocal chords in my surprise.

"Getting some fresh air..." I hear a reply. "I want to be the first of Mother Earth's children to get that luxury."

Slowly, with assistance from hundreds of mechanical arms and servants controlled by remote wires and radio from inside the land ironclad, I see the figure of the physical Terrestrial woman emerge slowly from the hatch, and seat herself down, staring up at the alien world around here.

"It's a lot easier to move here than home," she notes. "With just over a third of Earth's gravity, and much less pressure. I can actually move without hurting myself. You should come down here and try it."

For the briefest of moments I feel mildly jealous of her being able to experience the Martian planet, but this jealousy is quickly eliminated as she begins to send the physical experience over the radio telepathy link, allowing me to share on the moment.

She takes in a deep breath. "Ah... the air smells so funny without a respiratory tube. Yet it still tastes cleaner." She looks up at the alien sky, as she says. "It's amazing, that this place is further from the sun, yet you can still see it here."

"Congratulations, First Harmony Green. You are true to your name in being first; the first to set foot on Mars, the first to breath air, and the first to see the sun."

A pause came before she replied; longer than the time it would take for radio to reach from her to me. "Yes... I wish Mother Earth could be like this."

As the machines she controlled continued to labour away she merely sat atop her land ironclad. She was not in any danger in doing so, for I could see no Martian movement towards her from my satellite cameras, and so we spent the time chattering idly, even as we readied for further slaughter.

Upon completion of all tasks the woman got back into her land ironclad. The battery of self propelled radio controlled railgun artillery readied for her command.

"Fire Star Link detecting Martian evacuation movement. Sending co-ordinates."

"First Harmony Green receiving co-ordinates. Eliminating Martian movement. Battery firing."

On command the battery of railgun artillery fired their shells, taking in account calculations for Martian machine movement speed, difference in air pressure of Earth and Mars and gravitational effects, windspeed, and so on. Upon landing the shells quickly killed the Martian evacuees.

"Fire Star Link detecting that all Martian intelligence within range of First Harmony Green has been eliminated."

"First Harmony Green relocating... North I think."

With a churn the black land ironclad began to move, spouting out smoke from its engine as it does so. The small self propelled artillery pieces surrounding the land ironclad move alongside it, like soldier and worker ants around their queen.

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><p><strong>AN: After so long I've finally decided to start work on this a second time.**

**Note that this time I have a more clearly defined setting IMPORTANT: This is based off of what happens after the Martians failed in the original War of the Worlds novel, and is set in a universe parallel to ours. More info on the differences between their world and ours in chapter 2 author note at the bottom.**


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